What is VCR?

When will VCR be effective?

Is VCR mandatory?

Yes, VCR is mandated for issuers, acquirers and merchants. Visa requires all parties to be ready for the April 2018 launch.

How are disputes before the VCR migration date handled?

Disputes submitted before the deadline (in flight disputes) will be processed under the current rules and time frames.

Adyen processes disputes created by issuers within 0-3 days, some chargebacks raised by issuers close to the VCR deadline may still follow the old dispute flow (despite that the chargeback in the Adyen Customer Area is booked after 13 April 2018). Therefore, please note that April 14, 15, 16 and 17 may still feature disputes following the old (current) flow. Therefore, merchants should be prepared to handle both VCR disputes as well as disputes in the current flow.

What are the main changes with VCR?

The existing 22 reason codes will be replaced by new reason codes and grouped into 4 categories, Fraud, Authorisation, Processing Error and Consumer Disputes. Please review the Adyen VCR manual for an overview of the reason codes.

Disputes will be routed in two different workflows, called Allocation and Collaboration (please review the Adyen VCR manual for more information on these workflows).

Dispute response time frame will be reduced to 30 days (currently 45 days). Please be informed that in the Adyen Customer Area the defense time frame is 18 days.

As of 14 April 2018, Visa will block chargebacks with a fraudulent reason code (VCR reason code 10.4) for card-absent (e-commerce) transactions if the issuing bank approved the transaction with a Card Verification Value 2 (CVV2) mismatch. Visa encourages merchants to use CVV2 as part of their layered approach to fraud prevention.

Visa will allow a maximum of 35 fraudulent chargebacks on the same account number, within a timeframe of 120 days for Card Not Present (e-commerce) transactions.

Reason code 75 - Cardholder does not recognize is retired. Visa requires issuers to use the existing data in the Visa portal to assist the cardholder in recognizing the transaction. Other options are to exercise a Request for Information (RFI).

What are the (technical) changes applicable to Adyen merchants?

Technical changes:

Merchants using Adyen Dispute Notifications need to be aware of two new event codes: PREARBITRATION_WON or PREARBITRATION_LOST. These event codes will be added to the list of dispute notifications (field eventCode of the notification message will be populated with PREARBITRATION_WON or PREARBITRATION_LOST)

For Dispute event codes, ‘Notification of Chargeback’ and ‘Chargeback’, new VCR reason codes will be received as per April 14 2018 in field ‘reason’

Merchants using the Adyen Dispute API are informed that new defense reason codes are applicable for VCR disputes. Field ‘DefenseReason’ is changed

New dispute reason codes and respective defense reason codes will be visible in the Disputes section of the Customer Area.

Which indicator on the dispute can be used to know that it falls under VCR?

All new VCR reason codes have the following format: [category].[code]. The dot separating the category and the code indicates that the dispute follows the VCR flow. Disputes following the old (current) flow only have a two-digit reason code. Please review the Adyen VCR manual for an overview of the reason codes.

Are all incoming VCR chargebacks defendable?

Yes, for both Allocation and Collaboration chargebacks, the merchant is able to defend, either via the Adyen Customer Area or via the Dispute API.

What is the flow after a chargeback has been defended?

Merchants are informed that for defended Allocation disputes, no provisional credit is provided after uploading defense material. Adyen will create a Pre-Arbitration on the merchant’s behalf and will forward the documents to the bank (this is different from the current process, where the merchant is always credited the dispute amount after uploading defense material).

If the issuing bank accepts the Pre-Arbitration, the disputed amount is credited to the merchant and the following journals are booked: PreArbitrationWon and ChargebackReversed. If the issuing bank declines the Pre-Arbitration, the journal 'PreArbitrationLost' is booked and the dispute remains with status 'Chargeback'. Merchants using Adyen's Dispute notifications system, will receive a notification for event codes PREARBITRATION_WON and PREARBITRATION_LOST.

For Collaboration disputes, the dispute amount will be credited after uploading defense material (the defense flow remains the same as today).

Does VCR support the Request for Information (RFI)?

Yes, there will be no changes for issuers, acquirers and merchants regarding the RFI process.

Is there any change to Notifications of Fraud (TC40)?

VCR is not introducing any changes changes to Notifications of Fraud (TC40).

Where can I find more information about VCR dispute conditions and defense requirements?